BACKGROUND

An airport’s insurance program is just one component of an airport’s overall risk management program.  An insurance program can be quite complex to include the type of coverage, limits, retention amounts, and legal and contractual issues among other factors. Airports must also be sure that they are in compliance with federal airport grant assurances.

Airports must address associated risks when third party actors, such as t-hangar tenants and vendors, have a need for access to a part of the airport. Examples of risk based activities include:

• A t-hangar tenant driving within the air operations area (AOA) brings the risk of damaging an aircraft; 
• A contractor providing computer networking services does not have that same risk, but there is a risk of causing the network to be down, leaving the airport incapable of managing their day-to-day operations due to a high reliance on technology;
• Terminal concessionaires and accidental fires; and
• General aviation aircraft owner may not completely understand the requirement for insurance and may try to “game” the system or be deceptive about their activities. This may result in non-compliance that is only discovered after an incident.

There is limited guidance available to help airports develop an insurance program for the airport’s own activities, and when developing insurance requirements for the many third-party actors whose activities bring with them a level of risk that insurance is designed to mitigate and/or transfer. 

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this project is to develop a guidebook for airports of all categories to establish (a) an insurance program for its own activities and (b) insurance requirements for third-party actors based on the type of activity and risk.

Third-party actor insurance requirement considerations should include at a minimum:

• Type of coverage;
• Accessibility of coverage;
• Limits and retention; and
• Legal and contractual issues.

The guidebook should include the following elements at a minimum:

• Identification of impacts to insurance costs from proactive programs, (e.g., SAFETY ACT, SMS);
• A brochure that an airport can use to educate third-party actors on why the airport has insurance requirements; and
• Claims administration.

This project is specifically excluding construction issues.

STATUS: ACRP Research Report 248 is published